The need to maintain proper engine lubrication in today's automobile has caused the popularity of fast oil change and lubrication shops to grow rapidly. Nevertheless, with their fixed locations, the automobile owner still must take from 15 to 30 minutes from his schedule to have an oil change done while he waits.
While these shops are convenient for a majority of the motoring public, there is one major segment of automobile owners for which this is inconvenient and even costly--rental car agencies. With their large number of vehicles, and the rapid accumulation of mileage on the vehicles, these automobiles are in frequent need of oil change and lubrication. The inconvenience to the rental car agency is in the need to have a driver deliver each automobile to a fast oil change shop, wait on the oil change, and then return the vehicle to the rental car agency lot. With a large rental car agency, this procedure could easily require one person full time simply ferrying vehicles back and forth to the oil change shop. Several factors affect the cost to the rental car agency of having a vehicle's oil changed. In fact, the cost of changing the oil goes far beyond the actual amount paid to the oil change shop. Among the most significant cost factors are: (a) the additional mileage (wear and tear) on the car, (b) the gasoline to drive it to and from the oil change shop, (c) the vehicle's downtime while it is at the oil change shop, (d) the increased accident risk of having the vehicle on the highways while en route, and (e) the nonproductivity of the driver while he or she waits for the oil to be changed. When all of these hidden costs are considered, the total oil change cost could easily double the amount paid to the oil change shop. Alternatively, the rental car agency could invest in its own oil change facility, however that is a capital investment which most agencies are often reluctant to make.
While mobile oil change and lubrication have been done for heavy construction equipment for many years, the essential reasons and approach were different from the invention to be described. The reasons for on-site oil changes of heavy construction equipment are: (1) impracticality of transporting (driving or trailering) the equipment for such minor maintenance, (2) the construction equipment is unavailable for use while being transported and serviced, and (3) few maintenance shops can accommodate the special needs of heavy construction equipment. Because of the size of the equipment being serviced, these heavy equipment service trucks have usually been custom built directly on two ton, or larger, truck frames for the specific needs of the heavy equipment fleet. The large size of the service truck allows sufficient oil and other lubricant volumes to accommodate the large demands of the heavy equipment.
The introduction of mobile oil change operations to service automotive fleets has met with phenomenal acceptance. In particular, some of the largest rental car agencies have embraced the concept of an on-site mobile oil change operation which eliminates their need to constantly shuttle their vehicles back and forth to a fast oil change franchise. An expeditious method of fabricating a mobile lubricant recovery and delivery system was urgently needed. Therefore a stand alone, mobile lubricant recovery and delivery system which could be assembled on a pallet was disclosed in co-pending application Ser No. 09/036,748, filed Mar. 9, 1998, entitled "Integrated Lubricant Delivery and Retrieval Pallet and Method of Manufacture Thereof," commonly assigned with the present application. Not addressed in detail within the application was the method of attaching the pallet to the vehicle's cargo compartment floor. Initially, a conventional bolt and nut approach was used successfully. However, this approach proved both time consuming and somewhat tedious.
Thus, the ability to readily install and extract a lubricant recovery and delivery system pallet from a service vehicle was seriously impacted. Accordingly, a more automated latching system was desired that would expedite the insertion of the pallet into the vehicle by fork lift, and would either self-latch or have minimal human intervention to secure the pallet to the cargo compartment floor. Such a latch would also speed release and removal of the pallet, should it became desirable to move the pallet to another vehicle.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a more efficient way of outfitting a service vehicle with a comprehensive lubricant changing system and removing such system from the service vehicle as desired.